More than 300 nano-whippersnappers in the U.S. and overseas are targeting what promises to be a new Industrial Revolution. Nanotechnology will leave virtually no business untouched--or unscathed. The ability to create materials from building blocks the size of a virus will unleash unprecedented capabilities.
Nano is receiving enthusiastic scrutiny from some big companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Led by IBM (IBM ), Lucent Technologies (LU ), and Hewlett-Packard (HWP ), along with Samsung (SSNLF ) and Siemens (SI ), industrial heavyweights are pumping significant sums into nanotech research, as are governments around the world. A new study from CMP Cientifica, a market researcher in Madrid, says last year's worldwide government figure topped $1.2 billion. This year, the private and public sectors will probably spend $2 billion apiece on nano.
For insurance, big-name companies also are investing in nano-newbies--or teaming up with them. BASF (BF ), ChevronTexaco (CVX ), DuPont (DD ), and NEC (NIPNY )) are tapping the expertise of startups, most of which were founded by university researchers. Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (MIELY ) last year set up a $100 million fund to invest in nanotech, and Dow Chemical Co. (DOW ) in 2000 bought Dendritech Inc.'s dendrimer technology to serve as the basis for a future family of nanoscale polymers. All told, venture capitalists and corporate funds will probably plow $1 billion into nano investments this year, twice what they invested in 2000, says S. Joshua Wolfe, a partner at New York's Lux Capital Group.
To purists, nanotech means things with one dimension no bigger than 100 nanometers, or 100 billionths of a meter. Buckyballs--those soccer-ball-shaped carbon molecules discovered in 1985 by a team led by Rice University's Richard E. Smalley--are roughly 1 nm in diameter. Carbon nanotubes are about 1.4 nm thick. The latest entrants: slightly fatter nanotube-like wires made from silicon, gallium nitride, and other semiconducting materials.
Entrepreneurs also need advice on nanotech's intricacies. To meet these needs, the NanoBusiness Alliance was formed last year, and its 200 members are eyeing a huge potential jackpot. The National Science Foundation pegs nanotech as a $1 trillion market by 2015.
That figure may be conservative. Lux Capital's Wolfe points out that nanotech has started a snowball rolling, the likes of which has never been seen. Physicists work with chemists who collaborate with materials scientists who talk to computer scientists who are teamed with biologists. Cross-fertilization that used to be rare is becoming common. Big surprises really do come in small packages.
